Anybody here with a PA who refuses to recover?

[dawn1952]

My partner has told me that, if I can't get off his back about his porn use, I'll have to go. Those words. I'll have to go.

I read a lot of posts here where the PA admits they have a problem, even if they don't follow through with recovery or have a hard time with it. Others say their PA apologizes profusely and says they won't do it again, or they recover together.

What about saying "this is how I am. I've been doing it all my life and I'm not gonna stop. It makes me happy (you don't because we fight all the time -- about sex!)"

Has anyone stayed with their PA when they refuse to even admit they have a problem or, if you didn't stay, how did you deal with the broken heart and the trauma of trying to pick up the pieces of your life enough to move on? Right now, I feel so drained I just want to check out... today that means go to sleep. Sometimes it means I just want to die to make the pain go away.

[Charly22]

Dawn,

I believe the mindset and comments from your partner are very common from most all pa's before recovery. It seems that society wants us to believe this is all so harmless and it is not cheating, and you are a prude if you feel otherwise. I certainly heard ALL OF THIS from my husband when I started standing up against the continuing damage that was happening. I heard it all. And not just once. Time and time again, argument after argument, this was his defense. I stayed. But continued to stand up against it. I learned alot from this site. I set boundaries, and stuck to 'em. I decided that I was not going to be tolerant of it. I do whatever I had to do to make him realize that this was/is damaging our connection and our relationship. I'd like to copy a quote from my own journal, from a recovered pa who shared this with me:

"he is not doing this in malice, he is not doing this because he is not attracted to you, he is doing this because he is addicted and has no control over it, he is truly blind to the issue of PA.

PA's will rarely see this as a fault, unless they are broken down. He needs to be broken down Charly, you need to have the confidence to do that, and know he will not go away, he may suggest so, he play it cool, but thats because he is confident that you wont. If he starts to question that confidence, and starts to think, OMG this women I love is actually and seriously going to leave me, he will have no choice but to take a long hard look at himself and start to identify the PROBLEM, and then your PROBLEM will become aligned, and you will be on the same wavelength"

Now, I don't want to compare my own situation, or my own partner with anyone else's. And we don't know your partner like you know him. But, to hear from another recovered pa about how he might try to act like he will let you leave over this, or play it cool and act like he could care less if you leave, this really propelled me to realize that I had to do something about it, or it would continue. And if this man really loves you, he will do what it takes to protect the relationship. This isn't some silly dispute over which flavor of ice cream is better, this is serious damage that continues to eat away at the very thread of a relationship.

Just know that all pa's are going to have the same reactions as your partner is having in the beginning. And it's a shame that we have to work so hard to pound our point and our hurt and our needs into their hearts and minds.

As far as my own situation, after having to hear all of these same types of defenses and minimizing my hurt, and acting like I was wrong for even thinking it was a problem, this has changed for me and my husband. It took awhile, it took alot of work, it took alot of struggle, it took alot of me having to find ways to address the issue without arguing, screaming, judging, finger pointing, etc. I am not saying my husband is perfect (noone is), but things have improved greatly for us, and I hope the same for you and your partner.

[dawn1952]

Thanks, Charly. It all makes sense.

I sent you a PM. I hope you don't mind.

Here are some ((((hugs)))). Your words mean a lot to me.

Dawn

[stillandagain]

I, too, want to say that I have learned a lot from this site. I thought I knew about and practiced setting boundaries before, but NOW I am no longer practicing. It is not easy. I have been called "puritan," I have been asked about what is and isn't relapse - and thats from a person in recovery! What I have learned is this: "relapse is not an option" means relapse is not an option. I will not be cheated on anymore. P is cheating. I believe it in my heart and soul and mind. I will not be cheated on. Period. This is very sad to me. I KNOW I will leave him. I will not be made a fool of EVER again.

But that is me. And we are in active recovery. We talk about this every day. He is reading. I am reading. We are both active in 12-step groups. We are negotiating our own active s*x life.

The emotions are a freakin rollercoaster. I still police him, though not nearly as much. What I do is figure out new questions - they almost always produce new answers, about the past, thank God! But continuing to learn about the past is so very hard to hear. It cuts me to the quick.

Why am I confessing? Because I am afraid for you. And because I am at times afraid for me. MY empowerment comes with the fact that I will not stay in this marriage while he is cheating. Empowerment and deep sadness, for me, for him, for us.

[bethann27]

My partner has told me that, if I can't get off his back about his porn use, I'll have to go. Those words. I'll have to go.

I heard very similar words "well why don't you just leave" for many, many years. I didn't leave. He is just now (after approx 16 years! - I found out about this less than one year into our marriage) coming around to seeing how this has impacted me, my self esteem, the children, himself and our family as a whole.

And yes it does drain us of our energy. At times it felt like someone just pulled the plug and all my energy washed out. For some people some of the time antidepressants are needed. You are being prayed for & I hope that you know that you are definitely not alone.

[dawn1952]

I'm sorry for your pain, stillandagain. I'm afraid for us, too. I'm afraid because I put my faith in a man who doesn't seem to have it in him to love me the way I need. And I don't know where I'm going... I just know it's somewhere.

[TooSensitive]

Dawn, Charly is right and very wise with her words of wisdom, as are the other partners here. My h also has used leaving as a threat. So have I. Both of us no longer do. But it took us 2 years to stop. We didn’t stop until we started to learn there are other ways of handling the problems, such as communication. We are still learning how to openly communicate, but at least it is better than it was. And despite the threats, we are both still here.

I told my h that if he threatened to leave, he’d better be prepared to back up his threat. I told him if you are not serious, then don’t say it. I told him I won’t tell him he needs to leave unless I mean it. I told him that leaving is not necessarily the answer, unless you are not willing to at least try to work things out. I told him that in my mind, leaving was the easy way out, and that if he was not willing to do the hard work required to stay, then yes, he should leave.

We did have a 3-month in-house separation last year. I was at the point where I did not care whether he stayed or went. My survival depended upon that separation from him, as much as possible while still living under the same roof. It seemed to shake him up enough to start the wheels of change, albeit very slowly. We are still clawing our way out of this.

When I first made my discoveries of what my h was doing behind my back, coupled with all the unsettling and disturbing behaviors that happened right in front of my eyes (flirting, looking, and on top of that, ignoring me, which he had never done before), I gave him an ultimatum. Not at first – a whole year had gone by. I just couldn’t take his behaviors any longer. I couldn’t take the lying. I finally said to him, “If you don’t stop your denial, and if you don’t get yourself into a recovery program, then we are through”. He knew I was dead serious. I told him he needed to get into therapy, he needed to go to meetings, and he needed to read books. I directed him to a different message board similar to this one, but he did not actively pursue that save for a few weeks. So yes, I pushed him into recovery. He didn’t want to go – he went kicking and screaming. He was resistant; he outright refused to do certain things. He is still kicking and screaming to some degree. But he isn’t kicking and screaming as much as he once was. This has been going on for over 2 years now, this “recovery” thing between us.

Change has taken place, but I have only recently begun to see more consistency and more effort on his part. It has been very slow in coming. It is the only reason why I have been able to stay. I still have days when I question whether or not I will be able to stay. Most of the time I feel I can; but some days, I feel I can’t.

My h had admitted he had a problem, but he wasn’t sincere when he did. He was only telling me what he thought I wanted to hear, which wasn’t the truth. He was just trying to buy more time with me. I still question whether or not he thinks he does have a problem. My only ally out in the real world right now is our CSAT. Our CSAT seems to be the one person who can get through to my h. Most of the time, I cannot. If I do, it is only so far, b/c there is still a wall up, though at least that wall isn’t as high as it once was.

If my h had not agreed to start seeing the CSAT again, and this time around, with me, he knows it would have signaled the beginning of the end for us. I don’t even know yet if we will stay together. I believe it is both our goals to stay together; but there are certain things I need from him, and if he is not willing to give me those things – truth and honesty for starters – then I just don’t think I can stay for the long haul. The outcome of our marriage remains to be seen. I have hope, but I don’t have hope every day. I am open to both possibilities for the future of our marriage. It could go either way, and I am prepared either way. He is lucky I am giving him a chance to make amends.

Please do whatever it is you feel you need to do for yourself, whether that means leaving, or that means staying. It is hard to stay, when they are not giving us enough reasons to stay. I have told my h several times over, “Sometimes love just ain’t enough”, just like the song. Love is not supposed to hurt like this, or at least not hurt like this for as long as it has. When love is abusive with no end in sight, it isn’t love any longer, IMO. I don’t need to prove to anyone how capable I am of loving another; I don’t need to give such a testament to the world, by staying with someone who won’t honor me and who won’t honor the needs and expectations that most any relationship would have.

Addicts don’t have what they call “self-love”. Sometimes we don’t either. Some of us have never had that; some of us have, but we had lost it along the way while being with our PAs/SAs. What I’ve learned is that when we don’t have self-love, it isn’t possible for us to give all our love to another; it just isn’t. We may think we are, but we aren’t. We are only giving part of our love to another, when we don’t also love ourselves. B/c in having the ability to love others fully and wholly, we must also learn how to love ourselves first. This is what I’ve read, this is what I’ve heard, and this is one of many things my former therapist taught us during a recent workshop, “The Gift of Change”. All I can say is that it makes total sense to me.

Not only do addicts need to learn how to love themselves, we too need to learn how to love ourselves, too. B/c when we love ourselves – not in an arrogant or selfish way, but rather, in a confident and spiritual way that allows us to believe in ourselves – we then have more to give to others.

Dawn, may you and everyone else here learn the art of self-love, if you or they haven’t already. I don’t always love myself, but most days I do. Like everything else in my life, it is an ongoing and perpetual work-in-progress. I have good days and bad days, like everyone else. I am grateful that now, I have more good days than bad days; but the opposite used to be true.

Just b/c an addict may refuse to recover, doesn’t mean that we can’t heal ourselves. It might be easier to heal ourselves when they are committed to healing themselves too; but it is not impossible to do without them.

Be strong, as strong as you can be, in knowing what it is you need to do, and in knowing in which direction to go from here.

[champagnesuppanova]

I can only give you my own perspective and I haven't been dealing with this nearly as long as most of the other SOs on here.

Before Christmas, I knew there was a lot of P use and there was also webcamming going on. At the time, the big issue for me was the webcamming. I had asked him to stop, he had said he would then didn't, then said he would and gave me all the cameras, but then started to use an old computer with a built in cam. Then right before christmas we had a massive argument during which he made some statements that shocked me to the core "I will watch P as much as I like, I will webcam as much as I like, if I want to go out with a girl for coffee then I will. If you even mention the word webcam again, I will leave you".

I was so shocked I didn't know what to say or do. After a while, a couple of weeks or so, I would gently bring things into the conversation that ended up refering to webcams. Funnily enough he didn't leave. I carefully built up the conversations over time, talked openly about why I didn't like him using a webcam, talked about it with from the point of view of someone who was "trying to understand". When I took that line, he didn't feel threatened by the conversation, didn't see it as me trying to control his P use and so was happier to engage in the conversation.

And that, to me, was the key - the threat to leave is because he feels scared that his P was/is under attack. It's at risk. And the problem is that in the heat of the moment, a PA will do anything to protect his habit - particularly when they haven't acknowledged it as a problem.

Right now, me and the BF are in a place where he tells me he isn't webcaming with other girls (and for a number of reasons I am inclined to believe him), he still uses P but he is taking active steps to cut down by using diversionary tactics. He mostly tells me when he has used P, but not always. He isn't "in recovery", he has admitted he is addicted to me, he acknowledges that his P use has a negative impact on our intimate time together (i.e I get denied if he has exhausted himself elsewhere).

It was the approach to him from the angle of "help me to understand what you get from P/webcamming" that seemed to make him open up and not be so defensive. It worked for me. I can't say it would work for everyone. But from what you describe, you and your H seem to be in not such a far away place from where me and the BF were just 6-7 months ago.

Good luck.

[dawn1952]

[QUOTE=champagnesuppanova;67625]

After a while, a couple of weeks or so, I would gently bring things into the conversation that ended up refering to webcams. Funnily enough he didn't leave. I carefully built up the conversations over time, talked openly about why I didn't like him using a webcam, talked about it with from the point of view of someone who was "trying to understand". When I took that line, he didn't feel threatened by the conversation, didn't see it as me trying to control his P use and so was happier to engage in the conversation.

Thanks for your perspective, champagne. I wish this could work for me. In my heart, I believe (or want to believe) that he'd listen to me if I was gentle about talking with him and if I let him know I'm trying to understand. Maybe just too much time has gone by, though because I've tried everything. I've told him time and again that I'm not attacking him, I just want to understand but I guess we've fought about it so much (and he has such issues about being controlled) that nothing gets through to him. I've had to give up talking to him about it because it immediately escalates to a shouting match, me crying, and him shutting me down and/or threatening to break up. So, as much as I want this tactic to work (and it's worked for me in the past in other situations because I really DO want to understand and I really DO give people the respect I want for myself) I'm not sure it can. I haven't given up on it, but I haven't had much success with it so far.

And that, to me, was the key - the threat to leave is because he feels scared that his P was/is under attack. It's at risk. And the problem is that in the heat of the moment, a PA will do anything to protect his habit - particularly when they haven't acknowledged it as a problem.

All I can figure is that my PA has been attacked about his P use before me. He had a terrible childhood, so maybe it was one or both of his parents. He's been married before and his wife "just up and left him for no reason," so he might have had an earful from her over the 14 years they were together. I just don't know. All I know is that he jumped to the defensive immediately when he thought I was "against him", his "sexual adversary". He gets to that "heat of the moment" in a flash any more. I want to get through to him, but instead I've adopted the "leave it alone" mentality -- I just don't bring it up. I talk about my sorrow with others instead, so I'm not really stuffing my feelings, although my therapist thinks I am. I've gotten afraid to say anything to him about the one subject that's tearing us apart because he's so afraid I'm trying to control him and take away what, I guess, is the most important thing in his life. I just wish I was that most important thing.

Right now, me and the BF are in a place where he tells me he isn't webcaming with other girls (and for a number of reasons I am inclined to believe him), he still uses P but he is taking active steps to cut down by using diversionary tactics.

I don't think he has a webcam, I haven't seen one. He's talking about getting a new computer, though, and it worries me that it'll come with one built in. If he had one, would he use it? I don't want to think he would, but he's done things I never expected already, so I don't rule anything out. Especially when he's mad at me and he's acting out like a teenager ("well, I'll show her!") Especially now, because he can feel me pulling away (to protect myself) and he's depressed and he's worried and he's (from what I can see) pretty sad. (He's not doing anything to bring me closer, though. He's just escalating in his acting out.)

I wish he could figure out some "diversionary tactics". I wish P wasn't what he runs to when he's upset or anxious or bored. I wish it wasn't his hobby. As far as I can see, even when he's claiming to be studying for his work, it's not a diversion. In between bouts of studying, he's looking at women.

He mostly tells me when he has used P, but not always. He isn't "in recovery", he has admitted he is addicted to me, he acknowledges that his P use has a negative impact on our intimate time together (i.e I get denied if he has exhausted himself elsewhere).

My PA will never tell me when he's used P. I don't expect it. You're lucky yours does and that you have such good communication with him. He must love you very much. He also won't admit he's addicted or acknowledge the negative impact what he does has on our relationship. He's even used the line that it's "for us" and that he does it so he'll be interested in sex at all!

It was the approach to him from the angle of "help me to understand what you get from P/webcamming" that seemed to make him open up and not be so defensive.

I'm happy for you that this has worked for you. As I said, your guy must really love you. I'm kind of hoping that the love my guy claims to have for me will help us get through this because I do want to understand and I am willing to work with him to get through. It's finding the words and the right technique with him that has me perplexed. And, as I'm backing off, I'm starting to feel like I don't know how to get (or want to be) close to him any more.

[mary b]

Hi, I'm new here and I just want to say that after only two days of reading through some of your posts, that I do not feel so ALONE anymore...some of your stories are SO SIMILAR to mine but the one thing that makes mine different is that not only did my bf LOOK at P but he was also chatting and meeting up with women over the course of our 5 year relationship. I did notice that TOO SENSITIVE mentioned that she and her hubby had a 3 month separation and I'm just wondering how that worked...My guy has been out of the house now that we have shared for over 4 1/2 years together and he was supposed to move back after one month but when I ask him why it has been over 5 weeks now his response to me is that he wants to make sure that he is not going to stray again before he moves back in...I don't know how he expects that to happen though without the help of a CSAT. He asked me to find some reputable therapists for him and I gave him names/numbers but as of yet, after a month, he still has not called any of them...procrastination to the max! I don't get it...he made his own willing confession to me of his "sexcapades" as he calls them one month ago and said that he knows he needs help, but yet, when I give it to him, he does nothing with it. What do I do from here? Stop asking him when he's coming back home and stop asking him to call a therapist or do I keep at him? I'm confused and looking for answers but I'm not getting them from him? Anyone have any advice for me?